Equestria: The Calling

“Rise and shine ya two love birds.” Applejack teased. I woke up to see that I had been snuggling with Twilight in my sleep. We untangled ourselves from the awkward position we were sleeping in. I was so embarrassed. Applejack was standing behind me the whole time snickering. “Well shucks. I always knew you two had a thing for each other.” She joked. At this, we both turned and glared at her.

“We’re just friends.” We said in unison. We turned and looked at each other, both of us totally embarrassed. Applejack was now on her back laughing hysterically. I walked passed her scowling and grabbed a ration of cheese and bread that Celestia had given us for the trip.

“All right you.” I said, “Where are we going?”

“We need to head north” She said getting back up, “to the Drakenridge Mountains. Fluttershy and the spirit of kindness are there.” I opened up my ration and began to eat my breakfast.

“But aren’t the Drakenridge Mountains the dragon breeding grounds?” Twilight asked. I nearly choked on a piece of cheese.

First manticores and timberwolves and now dragons? You’ve got to be joking.

“That’s right” She replied. “But don’t worry; the mating season isn’t till the spring.” There was always the risk though. Dragons were rarely seen outside of their cave that they call their home. When threatened, dragons are vicious monsters. Not only can they fly, they can breathe fire and are cover in thick scales that block most attacks. They are streamlined tanks.

“How long will it take to get there?” I asked. She turned around and pointed towards a small bump on the horizon.

“That is Dragon Tooth Mountain way out there in the distance.” She explained “If we move out now, we’ll get to the base of the mountain by noon.” We quickly packed up our supplies and headed out on the vast plain in front of us. Celestia had graced us with a beautiful sunny day and a cool breeze. Since I wasn’t horribly burdened with supplies, I took to the air. I felt good to have the wind in my face. We walked and walked and walked for hours on end. The mountains slowly came into view. From a distance Dragon Tooth Mountain looked tiny but when we reached the first mountains of the range, it was towering over us. It was intimidating.

“How long is it going to take us to climb that thing?” I asked.

“Well for you it would take only a few minutes, but for us non-flyin folk, it could take a good two hours.” She said. Great so that meant I was grounded again. We stopped at the base of the mountain for a quick lunch and then began the exhausting task of climbing the mountain. About half way up the face of the mountain, a horrible odor began to emanate. It smelled of gasoline and rotten eggs. I noticed that the trees and foliage that we had seen further down the mountain had turned to basically nothing. I was observing all of this when suddenly the whole mountain shook.

“HOLD ON!” I yelled as I tightened my grip on the cliff face. As we held on for dear life, I watched as a column of black smoke rose from the top of the mountain. I immediately put two and two together. “Applejack, I think it might have slipped your mind to tell us that THIS IS AN ACTIVE VOLCANO!” I yelled. She didn’t have time to yell back. Before she could speak, the volcano shook again, this time even more violently. Suddenly the top of the volcano exploded to life spewing tons of molten rock it the air. “KEEP CLIMBING!” I screamed. We continued to scale the now erupting volcano. Instead of flowing lava, the mountain was launching large amounts of burning hot pumice down its slopes. We began to get pelted by a barrage of falling rocks. We pushed on hoping the eruption would subside. To our luck it did. I was worried about the well-being of the others. There was an outcrop a little higher up. It was large enough to get all of us on it at once. “Let’s rest here for a bit.” I proposed. When we finally sat down for a break, the adrenaline in my body wore off. I was exhausted. Seeing my fatigue, Twilight handed me a piece of bread from her pack.

“Keep up your strength.” She encouraged, “It’s not over yet.” I finished off my food and we continued to climb.